Page 53 of Potions & Pints
“Do you think you can remember your place now?” the chieftain said coldly.
Tan nodded.
“On your knees,” the chieftain said.
Tan went to obey, but he wasn’t fast enough. His knees cracked on the stone floor and he cried out in pain.
“That hurts, does it?” the chieftain asked.
Tan nodded. His tongue seemed to be stuck, but Tan knew there was no magic involved now. This was just fear. What was he going to do? He looked at the Librarian, but the man was impossible to read.
Maybe the Librarian just summoned the chieftain back because he knew the chieftain would dispose of Tan without a second thought. Maybe he was playing along but really had no intention of getting involved.
“I will tell you about pain,” the chieftain said. “There is no physical pain that can match the pain in a father’s heart when he loses a child.”
“You literally had Idruloo killed. And Pili sent to The Abyss. That is all your doing,” Tan said.
“And as such, my pain is worse. Do you not think that every day I am not filled with regret? That I do not wish that I had not had to do such a thing?”
Tan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The man literally plotted the assassination of one son and imprisoned another and now he was asking for what? Sympathy?
“My sympathy is with Pili and Idrulo, and Namys,” Tan said. “I don’t have any left for you.”
“You think I want your sympathy?”
“Don’t you?”
“What for? Will that ease my heart? You have lived your entire life making decisions based on what was best for you, and you alone, have you not?”
“I don’t know,” Tan said.
“No, you don’t,” the chieftain said. “Unless you are born into it, you cannot understand how, from the minute I took my first breath, my life was not my own to live.”
“You’re the chieftain,” Tan said. “No one makes you do anything. Do you think the elves that are turned into orcs are living their own lives?”
“What I’m saying is that I have the responsibility of my people. What is best for my people has to always be my greatest concern. Greater than what I want. Greater than my love for my own children.”
“You made a choice—”
“What would you have me do? Should I have spared my son, my precious Idrulo, so that he would drag us into war? Then ask every father in my village to offer up his son to serve with me, to risk their lives?”
The chieftain waved his hand again. Tan realized he could stand up, if he wanted to, but he wasn’t sure if he should.
“Stand up,” the chieftain said. “Look me in the eye when you answer my next question.”
Tan rose to his feet. Like his tongue, his legs didn’t feel exactly right, but he could tell the spell was wearing off rapidly.
“What is your question?” he asked wearily.
“What kind of a leader would I be if I chose to risk the life of every young elf in my village to save my son’s honor?”
Tan looked into the chieftain’s eyes. He could see the sincerity and the pain. It had cost the chieftain dearly to do what he felt was his duty.
“War always comes,” Tan said quietly. “You just picked Valar’s side. You have accomplished nothing.”
Tan did not expect the chieftain to thank him for his insight. Instead, he braced for another spell or perhaps just a hard backhand across the face.
“If there was a spell that could make you feel what I feel,” the chieftain said. “That could make you understand. There is none that I know of.”
